Chapter 1 – THE DRIVE INTO THE DARK

“Someone who has spent twenty-two years believing you were the one who died.”

The words hung in the dining room, heavy and suffocating.

Luca didn’t yell. He didn’t raise a hand.

He just stared at Vanessa with a cold, hollow intensity that made the wealthy guests shrink into their expensive chairs.

“Who?” Luca asked.

Vanessa touched her bare throat where the necklace had been. “If I tell you, my father will destroy everything we’ve built.”

“Your father is in Rome,” Luca said softly. “I am standing right in front of you.”

He looked at his security guards. “Nobody leaves this room. Collect every phone.”

Murmurs of outrage erupted, but a single, sharp look from Luca silenced them.

He turned to me.

“Emma. Bring the box.”

I gripped the wooden sewing box against my chest. My heart hammered against my ribs.

“Yes, sir.”

Luca didn’t look back at Vanessa. He didn’t look at his uncle or his aunt.

He just walked out the front doors into the freezing Chicago night.

I followed him, the gravel crunching beneath my thin housekeeping shoes.

His black SUV was waiting in the circular drive. He opened the passenger door himself and gestured for me to get in.

“Sir, I’m just a maid,” I whispered.

“Tonight, you’re the only person in that house who didn’t lie to me,” he replied.

I climbed in. He got behind the wheel, tires squealing as we tore out of the gates.

The drive toward Milwaukee was suffocatingly quiet. The heater blasted, but I couldn’t stop shivering. I kept staring at the small cream-colored recorder in the box.

It had played without batteries.

I reached out and touched it.

Underneath the recorder, a loose piece of lining had shifted.

I pulled it back.

Tucked in the corner was a silver pocket watch. It was tarnished, the glass cracked in a spiderweb pattern.

“Mr. Moretti,” I said softly.

He glanced over.

I held up the watch.

He hit the brakes so hard the SUV swerved onto the shoulder of the highway, gravel spraying into the darkness.

Luca threw the car into park.

He stared at the watch in my trembling hand.

“Open it,” he commanded, his voice thick.

I pressed the latch. The metal cover popped open.

Inside wasn’t a clock face. It was a tiny, faded photograph.

A teenage boy with dark hair, holding a younger boy who looked exactly like him.

Twins.

“That’s me,” Luca whispered. “And Julian.”

“Your brother?”

“My twin brother.” Luca’s hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “He died in a car crash when we were sixteen. The same year my mother passed away.”

I looked at the photograph, then at the black key in the box.

Number 317.

“Mr. Moretti… what if he didn’t die?”

Luca didn’t answer. He threw the SUV back into drive and slammed the accelerator.

Forty minutes later, we pulled up to a massive, wrought-iron gate in the middle of a dense forest.

A weathered stone sign read: St. Catherine’s Rest.

The building was a sprawling, gothic structure. Most of the windows were dark, but a few lights burned on the third floor.

“Stay behind me,” Luca ordered.

We bypassed the front desk. The night receptionist was asleep. Luca knew how to move like a ghost, and I had spent nine months learning how to be invisible in a mansion.

We found the stairs. Climbed to the third floor.

The hallway smelled of strong bleach and old lavender.

Door 317.

Luca stood in front of it. He took the black key from his pocket.

He didn’t hesitate. He unlocked it and pushed the door open.

The room was completely empty.

A stripped mattress. A bare desk.

But the closet door was cracked open.

Luca stepped inside. I followed.

Hanging in the closet was a heavy, dark wool coat.

Luca touched the sleeve. “This was my father’s coat. The one he was wearing the night he told me Julian was dead.”

Why was his father’s coat in his mother’s hospital room?

Before we could process it, a heavy footstep sounded in the hallway.

I spun around.

A man in a white orderly uniform was standing in the doorway, staring at us.

But he wasn’t looking at Luca.

He was looking at me.

“You shouldn’t have brought her here, Mr. Moretti,” the orderly said.

Luca stepped in front of me. “Who are you?”

The man smiled. “Room 318 is expecting you. But they only want the girl.”

Share